CBCP moves anti-poverty summit to July

Catholic Church officials have moved to July a national anti-poverty summit that aims to find ways to help the poor. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) National Secretariat of Social Action, Justice and Peace said the summit will be held from July 3 to 5. "The July summit will gather about 300 representatives from various sectors and will have no less than the country’s two cardinals delivering their keynote address and message," the CBCP said. "One of the goals of this Summit is to present to the government the real situation across the country before President (Benigno III) Aquino delivers his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 25, 2011," CBCP NASSA executive secretary Father Edu Gariguez said in an article posted on the CBCP news site on Thursday. Gariguez said the scheduled national summit would document the concerns of the basic sectors on anti-poverty, equity, and social reform. These concerns would be examined based on the government's Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTDP), 2011 budget, and the policy pronouncements of the chief executive and the legislature, Gariguez said. An earlier CBCP article had quoted Gariguez as saying that the summit would be held from June 4 to 5. The CBCP indicated that the regional "consultations" leading to the summit will be held this June. He added that the summit will be a "follow-up" of the Second Rural Congress held in 2008. - VVP, GMA News